News Archive 2008

December 2008: PNG closes book on illegal logging claims
Papua New Guinea's forest industry moved closer to closing the book on claims that it is a major source of illegal timber with the announcement of PNG's first independent legality verification certificate. The SGS Timber Legality Traceability and Verification (TLTV) certificate was awarded to Saban Enterprises Limited, a subsidiary of Rimbunan Hijau in PNG. The project was the result of collaboration between Saban, SGS - one of the world's leading audit agencies - and the ITTO, which jointly funded the development of the new legality standard for Papua New Guinea.

This important development contrasted starkly with a serious blunder by Greenpeace in September when it seized a timber vessel in the Gulf of Papua, claiming that it belonged to a particular company and held illegal timber. Those claims were publicly demonstrated to be as false as its claims that most of the logging in PNG is illegal. Greenpeace not only revealed its true colours, but wasted most of the one million euros that a Dutch agency forked out to finance the prank.

The intention of Rimbunan Hijau and the PNG Forest Industries Association is progressively to extend application of this legal verification standard to most operations in PNG. The Australian Government has offered funding to support this.

Greenpeace has criticised the SGS legality verification standard (and others) on the usual contrived grounds - lack of independence and poor consultation - revealing once again that its aim is not to curb illegal logging, but to exploit that issue with false claims to advance its campaign to restrict or halt commercial forestry in tropical developing economies. SGS publicly released its response to Greenpeace's complaints. The conclusion was as follows:

SGS finds it unfortunate that Greenpeace continues to undermine global timber legality verification efforts when both Greenpeace and SGS share a common interest - ensuring that timber harvested in any country meets the criteria of legality and provides the necessary assurances to consumer markets world over. A more productive cause for a globally reputable environmental NGO such as Greenpeace would be to work with timber producing country governments to improve their legal framework and bring it closer to Sustainable Forest Management standards.

The announcement by Papua New Guinea's forest industry is available here.

December 2008: Forestry in the spotlight at Poznan
Developing countries won some useful ground on forestry at the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland. The discussions over REDD - reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries - have now been broadened to include expansion in forest cover as a means of reducing emissions.

While the concept is yet to be endorsed by the UNFCCC and remains with a subsidiary body, the development represents a shift in thinking on how to use forests to tackle climate change.

Most REDD proposals - particularly those made by Greenpeace, WWF, the World Bank and the EU - have focused almost entirely on deforestation, ignoring the carbon sink function of afforestation and reforestation projects, and the implementation of sustainable forest management (SFM) as a means of climate change mitigation.

Both the UNFCCC and the IPCC have published data which clearly show that reforestation, afforestation and SFM are equally cost-effective climate change mitigation measures. These proposals reflect an apparent intention of Greenpeace and WWF to push their anti-commercial forestry agenda, whether it is sustainable logging in native forests or plantation forestry, through the climate change negotiations.

Deforestation-focused REDD proposals have also ignored the development risks associated with REDD. Data presented by the UNFCCC show that 80 per cent of deforestation is caused by agriculture. Almost half of deforestation is caused by subsistence agriculture. Thus far, no Green proposals on REDD have sufficiently explained how a strategy focusing purely on deforestation will guarantee either economic growth or food security for developing countries.

Some leading tropical forest nations, such as Indonesia, India and the Congo Basin countries, stressed that the climate change strategy must include sustainable forestry and expansion of sinks. The World Bank is considering how to meet these demands.

December 2008: Forestry the easiest way to mitigate emissions
US-based NGO World Growth released a report at the recent UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan pointing out how UN research shows that expansion of forestry is the most cost-effective way in which developing countries can mitigate emissions. The report, "Winners All - How Forestry Can Reduce Both Climate Change Emissions and Poverty", is available at www.worldgrowth.org. Click here to download the report.

November 2008: PNG's REDD proposal published
Papua New Guinea's analysis to demonstrate that it is ready to participate in World Bank REDD programmes has been published on the World Bank Forestry Carbon Partnership Facility Website. Unfortunately, the report draws heavily on recent research by the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) which suggests that deforestation rates in PNG were higher than extant assessments and that the commercial forestry industry is a significant driver of deforestation in Papua New Guinea. The methodology in the UPNG study has been severely critiqued by Colin Filer, one of the region's leading forest and resource management experts, and flies in the face of existing data on deforestation in PNG published by the FAO.

In a recently published report, Greenpeace relies heavily on the UPNG report in an attempt to resuscitate the flagging credibility of its claims that illegal logging is a major problem in PNG. It is now also making the unsupportable claim that commercial forestry is a major threat to the country's carbon stocks.

November 2008: ITTO holds 44th Session
The 44th Session of the International Tropical Timber Council (ITTC) was held from 3-8 November in Yokohama, Japan. At the meeting the ITTC announced funding of US $8.6 million toward tropical forests. This includes:

• US$3.5 million towards a new programme aimed at reducing deforestation and forest degradation in the tropics; and
• US$5.1 million for new projects and activities for the conservation and sustainable management, use and trade of tropical forest resources.

These funds are in addition to the US$3.1 million announced in June in Accra, Ghana. The pledged total in 2008 is therefore US$11.7 million.

The Council also announced a number of new pilot programmes, including: Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade; Community Forest Management and Enterprises; Trade and Market Transparency; Industry Development and Efficiency; and Reducing Deforestation and Forest Degradation and Enhancing Environmental Services in Tropical Forests. For the last programme, the Norwegian Government pledged US$3.5 million. The Council stated that further detail on all newly funded projects will be provided at a later date.

17 October 2008: EU to use climate change to push its deforestation agenda
The European Commission has announced that it will use the UN climate change negotiations to pursue its policies to restrict deforestation in tropical countries.

The Commission has proposed the formation of a 'Global Forest Carbon Mechanism' to be funded with ECU 1.5 to 2 billion derived from proceeds of auctioning emission credits in the EU. The money will be given to developing tropical countries if they agree to EU policies to cease deforestation and enter binding commitments to reduce emissions.

The EU will limit the number of credits developing countries can trade into the EU because if there were too many, that would ease the pressure on European energy industries to reduce emissions. The EU has said it will not be used to produce carbon credits in quantity in these developing countries until maybe around 2020 when they hope more global trading of credits occurs than is now the case.

Like WWF, which has set out near-identical policies, the Commission wants both to keep its cake and eat it too. It points out that unless the 17 per cent of world emissions generated by deforestation is eliminated, it will be too expensive for European industries to reduce emissions.

Yet it also accepts industrialised economies have a responsibility to lead on climate change. The report supporting the proposal shows that more carbon emissions can be reduced by afforestation and the practice of sustainable forestry, than by stopping deforestation.

Yet the Commission's proposal explicitly denies tropical developing countries the opportunity to secure benefits from extending sustainable forestry or conversion of forest lands to other commercially viable purposes, such as palm oil plantations, which are often more effective carbon sinks than forests.

These activities generate commercial returns and reduce emissions. The EU policy is an anti-forestry policy, not a pro-climate change mitigation policy.

It is also anti-development. There is ample scope in tropical developing countries to set aside conservation forests, to harvest native forests and to convert forestry to productive uses such as agriculture. The EU wants to keep these countries as parks, without regard to the economic well-being of the people.

The EU will announce these proposals at the climate change negotiations at Poznan in December 2008.

17 October 2008: EU announces illegal logging legislation
The European Commission has also announced a draft law for the European Parliament to make it illegal to procure or sell wood products without evidence the timber was legally obtained.

The proposed EU law to stop imports of illegal timber is like the US Lacey Act and UK law. It puts the onus on the buyer or importer in the EU to demonstrate the product is legally sourced.

This is poor law, requiring evidence to be produced from a second country to secure conviction in the first. It is expensive and rarely successful.

It claims 19 per cent of timber imported into the EU is illegally logged. This is unlikely since the Indonesian Government clamped down on illegal logging. The EU uses the illegal logging issue to advance its deforestation campaign.

9 October 2008: Norway puts money into forests, climate
Norway has weighed heavily into the forests and climate debate with a series of announcements relating to the Norwegian Climate and Forest Initiative (NCFI). Launched in December last year, the NCFI will fund REDD projects to the value of approximately US$500 million annually. The goal of the programme is to take early action on REDD while waiting for a post-2012 climate agreement to be finalised.

Norway has already committed US$100 million to the Congo Basin Forest Fund (CBFF), US$1 billion to the Amazon Fund, and US$35 million into the World Bank's own REDD pilots. Norway has also been engaged in talks with Papua New Guinea and Indonesia regarding disbursements in the Asia-Pacific region.

6 October 2008: FSC: Sues US Government, slammed by Greens
FSC---the WWF/Greenpeace-endorsed forestry certification scheme---has come under further fire from Green groups, indicating further a deep split within the organisation. International NGO Friends of the Earth (UK) has stated publicly that it does not recommend the FSC mark, that the FSC mark has been 'undermined' and that it is currently 'supporting a review of the FSC scheme' in order to 'understand how it needs to be strengthened in order to guarantee the highest environmental and social standards in all cases'.

The Rainforest Action Network (RAN), another member of FSC, has also criticised FSC, announcing it will undertake a strategic review of FSC. As stated in previous issues of Forestry and Development E-News, the clear tensions within the FSC membership indicate a lack of clarity about whether FSC is in the business of environmental advocacy lobbying or verifying sustainable forestry management. .

September-October 2008: PNG deforesting?
Greenpeace continued to repeat its routine allegation that PNG was heavily deforesting and endangering the 'Paradise Forests' when its vessel, The Esperenza, 'Keystone Copped' its way through the Gulf of Papua last month, seising a vessel it thought belonged to someone else, and alleging it carried illegal timber, which was palpably legal.

Three weeks later, the EU released a map prepared by Millennium Ecosystem Assessment showing global deforestation to support its new carbon initiative. According to the map, there is no serious deforestation problem in PNG.

Presumably the Dutch lottery foundation which funded the Greenpeace 'Paradise Forest' campaign in the South Pacific to the tune of around ECU 2 million (according to the Greenpeace website) considered its money was well spent.

30 September 2008: Garnaut backs off forestry in PNG
The Garnaut Climate Change Review - Australia's answer to the Stern Report - has changed its view of forests in developing countries as an easy source of carbon credits. The Review's recently released final report flags the potential for a bilateral carbon trading scheme to exist between the two countries. It also states that drivers of forestry-related emissions include "subsistence farming, illegal logging and poor governance" - but the commercial forestry industry was not mentioned. This contrasts heavily with the Garnaut Review's interim report and discussion paper. It confidently stated that PNG's rural population could take cash payments for carbon in lieu of timber revenues from commercial forestry. This contention was made with seemingly little consideration for governance and implementation issues, or even the contribution of the forestry industry to PNG's rural communities. Moreover, the Review had undertaken no quantitative research comparing the value of PNG's forests as carbon or as timber, or what would benefit PNG's rural poor the most. The change is consistent with an emerging developing country position: that forests aid both the climate and development when they are harvested and managed.

16 September 2008: Lacey Act comes under fire
The recent amendments to the Lacey Act in the US that attempt to prevent the import of 'illegal' timber products have come under fire from business groups in the US. Bloomberg reports that according to the Washington-based National Retail Federation, a peak body for US retailers, the law has been written so broadly that almost any product derived from plants could fall within the legislation's definitions.

The legislation requires importers to disclose the specific name, value and quantity of plant product, and the country from which it was harvested when importing any plant-derived products. If this information is not known, importers must disclose possible species and possible countries of origin. In reality, this means that importers of cosmetics that might use fragrant woods or textiles such as rayon using cellulose fibre must disclose this information.

9 September 2008: Greenpeace gets it wrong: the poor in the Pacific are the victims: commentary by Alan Oxley
Last week, Greenpeace blundered with a clumsily executed publicity stunt in the Papua Gulf in Papua New Guinea (PNG) in the remote South Pacific. Greenpeace protestors illegally boarded a ship, claiming that the timber it was transporting to China was illegally logged by long-standing Greenpeace target, Rimbunan Hijau, the largest forest business in PNG.

Greenpeace hadn't checked its facts. The timber was not from a Rimbunan Hijau company. When told this, Greenpeace pointed to a report by SGS, the Swiss inspection company, which cited the company concerned. But the SGS report was found to be in error.

Greenpeace persisted and continued to claim that the ship was carrying timber from the Rimbunan Hijau company.

Associated Press (AP) correctly reported the Greenpeace action as "piracy", an illegal boarding and seizure of a vessel. The Post Courier newspaper in Port Moresby ran the AP report in full, with the headline "piracy". This was unusual. The Post Courier is traditionally a critic of the timber industry in PNG. It probably felt misled. The day before, it had devoted extensive space to the Greenpeace argument that it was saving PNG forests. The ABC ran an article that corrected the Greenpeace claims.

Just like the famous Brent Spar blunder in 1995, when Greenpeace erroneously insisted that the ditched oil platform discharged a large amount of oil into the North Sea, Greenpeace is still claiming that the timber is from Rimbunan Hijau. In the end, Greenpeace apologized about Brent Spar. So far there is no sign it will follow suit in PNG. Is this hoodwinking on Greenpeace's part, or is the NGO jammed between a rock and hard place? There seems to be plenty of hoodwinking.

August 2008: UNFCCC still trying to see REDD
Forestry's role in climate change was up for discussion at the UNFCCC talks in Accra, Ghana in August. On the table at a workshop meeting was 'Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries---Approaches to Stimulate Action'. The workshop followed on from discussions earlier this year in Bonn and Bangkok, as well as in Bali in 2007. The talks demonstrated that what seems like a straightforward concept---compensating developing countries for avoiding deforestation---is proving exceedingly difficult.

Submissions by parties prior to the workshop indicated that there is a large gulf between what developed and developing economies expect from negotiations. Countries such as India, Indonesia, Congo Basin nations and a coalition of 27 small developing nations (including Papua New Guinea) proposed that they be compensated for increasing their forest carbon stocks (afforestation and reforestation) as well as avoiding deforestation. However, this is at odds with the EU and Green position, which is only concerned with avoiding deforestation---and not expanding the commercial forest industry. At the end of the workshop, agreement was reached on only one thing: to continue discussions.

The workshop highlights two major problems with the enthusiastic approach to REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) taken by Greens. Firstly, it assumes that a global agreement on emissions trading is imminent. While the UNFCCC has talked up a global agreement and named December 2009 as a deadline, prospects remain low. China and India are unlikely to agree to deep emissions cuts; the US will not participate in an agreement unless China does. Secondly, it assumes that enough is known about the forest carbon cycle. Measuring carbon emissions from soil disturbance after forest harvesting, or even finding estimates for carbon sequestered in standing forests, is still in its infancy. At this stage, REDD is based on unmeasurable carbon credits within a yet-to-be defined emissions trading scheme that is part of a non-existent climate agreement.

REDD looks increasingly like a fund to coax tropical forest nations to accept binding commitments to reduce emissions and restrict forestry in return for cash.

27 July 2008: WWF trots out the 'usual suspects' for the EU
WWF has been using old and discredited data in its efforts to lobby the EU Government ahead of proposed new EU legislation on the import of illegal timber products. A WWF report released in late July claimed that almost 20 per cent of all timber imports to the EU are from illegally-sourced timber.

But the numbers used to derive this figure are from sources that have previously been discredited in numerous international forums. For example, the figure for illegal timber from PNG - 70 per cent - is sourced from a Seneca Creek report estimate that was applied to the entire Asia-Pacific region without any research on compliance or timber flows. The figure for Malaysia was sourced from an Australian Institute of Criminology report which had a formal complaint lodged against it by the PNG Forest Industry Association.

The EU was due to publish a legislative proposal on illegally logged timber products in July; it has now been pushed back to September. Green NGOs are likely to step up their activity in the meantime.

21 July 2008: SGS-FSC moratorium being beaten up by Greens
The recent moratorium on new FSC certification assessments by Swiss-based auditors SGS has been beaten up by Green groups. The moratorium introduced by SGS was prompted by a shortage of qualified assessors to undertake new certification activity. However, Green groups - including World Rainforest Movement and FSC-Watch - have attempted to use the moratorium to discredit certification activities by SGS. Green groups have long objected to FSC and SGS certification of plantation forests and have lobbied FSC as such. Greens have also lobbied against certification of FSC-compliant companies that aren't in tune with the Greens' conservation agenda, such as Veracel and Asia Pulp and Paper. This puts FSC in a perilous business position. On the one hand, it claims to offer a business-to-business service but, on the other, is also coming under pressure from Green NGOs when it certifies a company that Greens dislike.

14 July 2008: World Bank announces REDD recipients
The World Bank has announced its first round of REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) funding under its Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. The Bank has given funding to 14 developing countries in total: six in Africa (the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar); five in Latin America (Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guyana, Mexico, Panama); and three in Asia (Nepal, Lao PDR, Vietnam). Indonesia, Brazil and Papua New Guinea - often portrayed by NGOs as the world's deforestation 'hotspots' - were absent from the applicant list. In a press interview, Benoit Bosquet of the World Bank's carbon finance unit conceded that, without the participation of Brazil and Indonesia, forest-based emissions would not be reduced substantially. However, he also expected both countries to apply for funding within the next 12 months.

6 June 2008: SGS criticises Greenpeace assessment of legal verification
SGS, one of the world's most respected inspection organisations, has criticised a Greenpeace report released in January that purports to be a technical assessment of international legality verification systems as unprofessional and not transparent.

Greenpeace gave the SGS Timber Legality Traceability and Verification (TLTV) system a surprisingly low score, despite the system being considered one of the best around. The SGS statement says that "the Greenpeace Assessment does not qualify as a balanced, informed, and accurate analysis" and highlighted the "lack of professionalism and transparency applied by Greenpeace in carrying out this specific task, especially since, in doing so, Greenpeace is adversely affecting potential customers' perception of the services."

30 May 2008: WWF at CBD - "postcard" theatrics
WWF has claimed that environment ministers from 60 countries have demonstrated their support for WWF's call for zero net deforestation by 2020 by signing postcards at the WWF side event at the 9th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP9) in Bonn last month. The postcards were addressed to WWF International Director-General, James Leape. Australia and Indonesia both signed the postcards. WWF has said that its target of zero deforestation by 2020 was set to "support and enhance the CBD's Forest Programme of Work". WWF has once again demonstrated that when crafting policies to achieve its forestry ambitions, no weight is given to economic growth or eradication of poverty.

27 May 2008: NZ announces illegal logging measures
The New Zealand Government has announced it will adopt measures to address the issue of illegally-logged wood products. New Zealand Forestry Minister Jim Anderton announced that international action will include financial mechanisms to reduce deforestation in developing countries, research, and government engagement with key consumer countries that are considered a risk for the export to New Zealand of illegally-logged wood. New Zealand's timber imports are relatively small, but a campaign by the New Zealand Greens attacking the import of kwila - primarily from Malaysia - has gained considerable attention over the past months. Cabinet has agreed to compulsory labeling of kwila products that indicates if it has been legally verified by a third party. An election is approaching in New Zealand, so these measures are likely to have been adopted to win over the Green vote.

25 April 2008: Greenpeace moves attacks to Solomons
Greenpeace's failed campaign against the commercial forestry industry in Papua New Guinea has now shifted back to the Solomon Islands. Greenpeace had previously run a campaign against forestry in the Solomons in 1999 and 2001. Its campaign then constituted a broadside at the Solomons' poor. One report stated that after receiving income from forestry, "People started to buy things they didn't really need like tinned and processed foods". The NGO is now voicing the same rhetoric against the Solomons' commercial forestry industry as it did in PNG, accusing it of bribery, tax avoidance and poor labour practices. It is also attempting to re-mount the same campaign for 'small-scale eco-forestry' operations for local operators, promising access to significant premiums for an FSC-certified product.

22 April 2008: Forestry equals climate solution: Gabon, Indonesia
Submissions by Gabon and Indonesia to the UNFCCC on reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) indicate support for carbon absorption in sustainably managed commercial forests. Gabon's submission, which was made on behalf of the Congo Basin countries, states that emissions from the exploitation of sustainably managed forests should not be included in carbon accounting, and that "enhanced forest carbon stocks achieved through sustainable management should also be estimated and compensated". Indonesia also states that "Countries would be compensated for any carbon stock accrual or enhancement through forest management between a first and a second carbon stock inventory".

16 April 2008: AIC report on illegal logging fails organisation's own professional standards
The PNG Forest Industries Association has complained to the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC), an Australian Government legal research agency, that a recent report on imports of "illegal timber" fails the Institute's charter obligation to produce impartial and high standard research. The report repeats Greenpeace claims that an Australian subsidiary of an arm of forest company Rimbunan Hijau imports and sells illegal timber in Australia and that illegal logging is prevalent in PNG. The Association says that this is untrue and that the report defames the Australian company.

It points out that the report is full of errors, for example underestimating plywood production in PNG by two-thirds, because it draws mostly on reports by Greenpeace and the Australian Conservation Foundation. These are political documents which are heavily slanted to push anti-forestry positions. They are notorious for sensationalist claims about illegal logging and forestry which cannot be substantiated. There is ample material on the record from industry and government sources which illustrates this, but virtually none has been drawn on in the report. As well as being full of errors and slanted, it is outdated.

1 April 2008: Political disputes spell commercial trouble for FSC
FSC's ambition to become the world's leading forest certifier has been seriously harmed by deep internal political divisions which make it a very undependable partner. The World Rainforest Movement (WRM), a key member and one of the founders of FSC (along with the initiators, WWF and Greenpeace) has demanded that FSC cease certifying plantation forestry. It recently publicly described FSC's decision to certify eucalypt forests in Brazil as the system's 'death certificate'.

Anti-forestry groups have been criticising FSC for some time through the website "FSCWatch" for certifying legitimate forestry in native forests.Ecological Internet has described such activity as a "big lie". Under this sort of pressure, FSC is now unilaterally cancelling commercial arrangements. It recently revoked the right of Indonesian pulp and paper company APP, one of the largest in the world, to use the FSC logo on paper products, despite formal verification by inspection agency SGS, as it had in the past, that the product met FSC rules. No formal justification was provided. FSC's spin was that the company's forest practices were poor. There is long-standing bitterness between WWF and APP over a failed effort to collaborate several years ago.

17 March 2008: PNG industry to invest in silviculture
Rimbunan Hijau, the largest forestry company in PNG has announced that it will make further substantial investments in silviculture and reforestation in Papua New Guinea, in line with the Australia-PNG Forest Carbon Partnership Agreement. The company commenced its silvicultural investments in 2006, when it identified plantation sites and species across the country. The company has also states that the activities will incorporate large-scale community participation in the investments. The company has also stated that its activities will go well beyond paying the current reforestation levy imposed by the PNG Government.

4 March 2008: Lao forestry under the green spotlight
A report released by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and the World Conservation Union (IUCN) has released a paper that criticizes the impacts of LaosÕ forest industry. The report, ÒEnvironmental Impacts of Trade Liberalization in the Wood and Wood Products Sector of the Lao PDRÓ largely ignores the positive impact of the forest products sector, which now makes up almost 25 per cent of all exports from the country. Green NGOs have consistently overstated the impact of commercial forestry in Laos. The country has large forest reserves. There is deforestation, but the primary cause is slash and burn agriculture practices by Lao people living on mountain lowlands.

30 January 2008: WWF and Flannery promote climate change forestry experiment in PNG
WWF and Australian climate change author Tim Flannery have made a joint submission to the Australian Garnaut Climate Change Review, proposing that PNG villagers in remote areas sell carbon or biodiversity credits via Internet auction site eBay to conserve their forest areas. They will apparently do this using a combination of mobile phone technology, laptops, Internet auction sites and satellite mapping.

The concept is that the rural poor would benefit more from trading carbon in trees than from harvesting them. PNG's rural poor need more income. Less than 9 per cent of rural households have access to piped water and less than 15 per cent of the rural population attends school beyond the age of 15. The scheme, however, is likely to decrease not increase income.

For a start, the idea requires a globally managed system to trade carbon credits and none is in prospect. A related idea was proposed at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change last year and was even given some World Bank support. It depends on the establishment of a global system to trade carbon credits under the Convention. At Bali in December, parties to the Convention did not endorse the idea of globally managed carbon trading and remain unlikely to do so.

With less than 0.5 per cent of people able to access the Internet, communications in PNG could not support such a system anyway. Only 1.2 per cent of the population of five million have fixed-line telephones. A simpler and more effective strategy would be to improve commercial forestry and to increase harvesting: that generates the environmental benefit of increasing the carbon sink in PNG forests and increases the returns from commercial forestry, thereby increasing rural incomes. But WWF (along with Greenpeace and the Australian Conservation Foundation) have consistently worked against commercial forestry in PNG.

30 January 2008: Greenpeace assessment of legality verification systems - who benefits?
In a new "assessment" of systems to verify the legality of forest logging, Greenpeace has advanced a set of criteria which requires a "time-bound commitment" to adopting FSC-certified forestry management.

The report criticises many other verification systems for lack of transparency. Greenpeace fails to mention in the report that it has a proprietary interest in FSC as a founding member and that it is a member of one of FSC's governing bodies.

Greenpeace has an established record of targeting businesses that do not adopt its preferred policies on forestry and sourcing of timber. It usually also promotes the FSC system set up by WWF which companies must pay to join. FSC is facing increasing competition from legality verification schemes, which offer legality verification without onerous procedures and costs that can be prohibitive for developing country operators.

8 January 2008: Tropical forests - what crisis?
A new study from the University of Leeds challenges claims of a global crisis in tropical forestry. The study, published in the US-based National Academy of Sciences, has found that evidence of a decline in tropical forest area is unclear.

"The picture is far more complicated than previously thought", said Dr Alan Grainger, the study's author. "If there is no long-term net decline in global forestry, it suggests that deforestation is being accompanied by a lot of natural reforestation that we have not spotted", he said.

Dr Grainger is one of the world's leading authorities on deforestation. He has found inconsistencies among United Nations' forest resources assessments. He has concluded that current data cannot be used to monitor tropical forest area with great accuracy.

"Scientists all over the world who have used these data to make predictions of species extinctions and the role of forests in global climate change will find it helpful to revisit their findings in the light of my study", he said.